A Life Less Ordinary (5 page)

My thoughts were treacherous. Every time I accepted – or came close to accepting – that I was a frog, I took one more step towards becoming a frog permanently. I tried to concentrate on being human, yet it was hard. There was no sense that I was crippled, or even in the wrong body. I imagined that men and women who wanted to change sex felt crippled in their original bodies, but the frog’s body felt natural and right. I hopped again, hoping to catch sight of Circe, but she had vanished. I wondered if I should follow her out onto the streets – if she had gone out onto the streets – before realising that no one in the mundane world would know that I was human. I’d probably end up getting eaten by a cat or squashed by a bus.

An overwhelming feeling of despair washed over me. I couldn’t escape; I might as well seek out a pond and spend the rest of my days croaking on a lily pad. Sheer anger blew the despair away – how could someone do that to me – yet it seemed impossible to focus on returning to human form. I had no idea how to cast a counter-spell or even how to attract Master Revels backstage so he could help me. I wished that Fiona was there, someone who could bridge the gap between animal and human, or...

I stopped, thinking hard. I hadn’t paid close attention to the book on animal transformations, but it had talked about mirrors reflecting the true state of the soul. I hopped across the room – the body still felt natural, damn it – and towards the mirrors Master Revels had left there from one of his earlier acts. Or maybe they weren’t his. I didn’t know and didn’t care. All I cared about was looking in them and seeing whatever I saw. I saw a small green frog, staring nervously into the mirror, and felt the despair washing up again. I was trapped.

Or was I? The magical world is never in plain sight. Master Revels had been clear on that point. A person without any magical talent – a mundane, in other words – would never be able to see magic properly, even if it was right in front of him. His mind would explain it away as a trick, just as George had done back on stage, or his eyes would simply miss it completely. I looked back into the mirror and saw the frog looking back at me...and something snapped inside my mind. I closed my eyes, feeling anger washing over me, and concentrated on my human form. I was human, I told myself, time and time again; I was human.

I opened my eyes. I was staring into a misty image of a naked human female. The image grew sharper and clearer until I saw my own face looking back at me. I recoiled in astonishment and fell over backwards, landing on my bare bottom. I was naked, but I was human again. Cool rationality asserted itself and I realised that when I’d been transformed for the first time, my clothes, designed for a human, would have simply fallen off. I yelped in delight and astonishment. I had broken the curse!

“I didn’t realise that you hated your outfit that much,” Master Revels said, from behind me. I yelped again and brought up my hands to cover my private parts. He looked away politely and flicked his cane, sending my clothes flying through the air towards me. I picked them up and slowly put them on. “I wondered what had happened to you.”

I started to shake, now that it was over. “She turned me into a frog,” I said, between gasps. I had never panicked before, yet now I was on the verge of breaking down. “I was a frog!”

Master Revels gave me a vague look. “I see,” he said, calmly. I got the feeling that very little would ever bother him. I later learned that he had faced down a thousand devils and demons and after that mundane human problems could hardly bother him. “Who transformed you into a frog?”

“She said she was called Circe,” I said, and blurted out the rest of the explanation. Master Revels listened politely, showing few signs of interest. I was starting to wonder if such transformations were more common than they seemed. How many people went missing every year, dropping out of the mundane world and vanishing completely? “Who
is
she?”

“She claims to be the goddess herself,” Master Revels said, dispassionately. “If you believe her story, long ago she was confined on an island and allowed to prey on any settlers who landed on her territory. The Gods themselves had confined her because she was too dangerous for them to tolerate. Every time someone landed on the island, they would be wined and dined by her, before she turned them into an animal and added them to her flock of pets. Eventually, she was able to escape the island and start wandering through the magical world.”

I remembered watching a TV show about her now. “She turned...I can’t remember his name, but he was played by Homer Simpson...she turned his men into pigs and he ate them all before she could stop him.”

Master Revels snorted. “The original version of the story has her turning a sailor’s crew into pigs, but their leader – Odysseus - was aided by one of the Greek Gods, who gave him advice that allowed him to beat her and convince Circe to join his side,” he said. “I don’t think he ate his crewmen, seeing as they were able to leave the island safely once her power was broken.”

“Oh,” I said. I wasn’t about to admit that I’d had very little time to read about the Greek Gods. “And now she walks the world turning people into frogs.”

“Amongst other things,” Master Revels said. He picked up his hat and turned to the door. “We’d better start heading home. Fiona will be worried.”

“Wait,” I said. “Tell me...is there nothing that can be done about her?”

Master Revels looked back at me. “What do you mean?”

“The next person she targets might not be able to break the spell,” I insisted, as I stood up. It felt colder now, somehow, although that might have been just because my clothes had fallen off. I didn’t appear to have suffered any permanent damage, but I resolved to wait and see if I felt an impulse to start grabbing at flies with my tongue. “Can’t we stop her?”

“Think about it,” Master Revels said. “She may or may not be a goddess, but she is extremely powerful. Who would want to get on her bad side by trying to curb her activities?”

I closed my eyes. “Besides,” he added, “normally she goes after people who thoroughly deserve it. She gains some of her power that way. You were just the exception that proves the rule.”

He opened the door and swept out, inviting me to follow. I hesitated, still shaking inwardly, before I somehow managed to start walking through the door and out into the streets. Darkness had fallen, but the city was still illuminated by both magical and mundane lighting, casting an eerie sheen over the buildings. I looked up towards the castle and blinked in surprise; if anything, the magical haze surrounding it, utterly invisible to most of the city’s residents, had grown brighter.

“Come on,” Master Revels said, firmly. He strode away, back towards his house, not looking back to see if I was following him. I shook my head and walked after him, feeling the cool air blowing against my exposed midriff and legs. I was aware of glances, of men looking at me, yet somehow it was easy to ignore them. Being turned into a frog, if only for a few minutes, had put the world in perspective.

As I walked, I became even more aware of how many people cast long shadows into the magical world. They seemed to be out in force now that the sun had set, from a man I was convinced was a vampire to a very strange man with long legs and a tiny body. He looked like a daddy-long-legs given human form, I decided, after reminding myself that it was rude to stare. A stream of ghosts walked down past the castle, following a ghostly tour group that was showing foreigners around Edinburgh. I wondered if any of the tourists could see the real ghosts before deciding that it was unlikely. They would have run all the way down the Royal Mile if they could see the headless woman pulling faces at them. I was so distracted that I didn’t notice the more mundane danger behind me until a hand fell on my shoulder.

I recognised them instantly. They were the drunken men from the stage show, now even drunker and clearly intent on some action. One of them pawed at me and I slapped him away, but another was trying to grab hold of me somewhere delicate. I reached inside me for the magic and pushed it at them, trying to push them away, yet it was unfocused and unprepared. They blinked, but clearly dismissed it as the wind.

“Now,” one of the drunkards said. His breath smelt of alcohol, yet he seemed to be marginally less drunk than his companions. “You’re going to dance for us and then...”

He broke off. I saw his skin melt and jumped back sharply, wondering if I’d somehow killed him – killed them all – with magic. He opened his mouth to scream, but his body melted away before any sound could come out, leaving him falling forward onto all fours. His clothes tore and fell off his body, falling to the ground, revealing a man transforming into a pig. I looked up, already sure of what I would see. Circe was standing there, lowering her arms to her side. Just by smiling, she made me feel frumpy and ugly. All of the drunkards were becoming pigs.

I found my voice. “Why?”

“They were pigs inside,” Circe said. Now I knew more about her, I could hear an eerie timeless note in her voice. Her shadow didn’t seem to correspond to her human form. “And now their outside matches their inside.”

She clicked her fingers and the pigs trouped up behind her. I wondered if they knew what had happened to them, or if they intended to try to fight. It seemed otherwise; they lined themselves up like good little pigs, waiting to walk away with their new mistress. Circe bowed to me, waved her hand and turned and walked away, leaving me staring after her in disbelief. It was a miracle that none of the mundane humans could see her or what she’d just done to the would-be muggers. How could they not see her?

“Give my regards to your Master,” Circe called, and walked off into the shadows. They came alive and swallowed her and the pigs up, leaving me alone. I turned and fled, running blindly through the streets back towards where Master Revels and Fiona were waiting for me. As I ran, heads turned and eyes followed me, but no one reached out to bar my way. I ran into the house and closed the door behind me, still shaking. How many people survived two encounters with Circe in one day?

I caught at Master Revels as he peered down at me. “Teach me how to fight,” I said. “I need to know.”

“Yes,” Master Revels agreed. “You certainly do.”

***

After the encounter with Circe, my training took on a more focused nature, although Master Revels insisted on grounding me in all forms of magic. I learned how to cast small spells that used tiny amount of magic, although the more powerful spells remained beyond me for the moment. Master Revels explained that all new magicians were poor at casting powerful spells at first, although the more talented could sometimes cast them in times of desperate need. I needed to work on developing my reserves and using them to power my magic. It was like a muscle, Fiona added; the more I used it, the more I could do with it.

As the days passed, I also learned how to study and use a spellbook safely. Master Revels, after reminding me about what happened when I had used a spell without checking it first, helped me to learn how to work out what was missing and how to fill it in without accidentally causing a disaster, or killing myself. Magic tended to work by natural selection, he warned; stupid magicians rarely remained alive very long. I was taught to always ward myself against anything getting out of control, just to limit how badly I could be hurt by an accident or my own stupidity.

“Respect magic or you will end up burned,” Master Revels said, at the end of every session. I nodded in understanding. I’d been studying some of the more complex charms and all of them had at least some danger for the unwary user. A charm to gain the seeming of another person – one that would be far more convincing than a simple glamour – could become permanent if due care was not observed.

Fiona had her own pithy comment. “It is like playing with fire,” the dragon observed, “except you can get burned before you light the match.”

A month after I started studying in earnest, Master Revels led me through the corridors and down into a small room. It looked alarmingly like a cell, although there were no chains or barred windows. Light seemed to flicker out of nowhere, casting eerie shadows over the stone walls. There was, naturally, a big wooden door blocking all escape.

“All you have to do,” Master Revels said, “is get out, escape from this room before lunchtime.”

Without further ado, he pushed me into the chamber and locked the door behind me. I looked around, but I didn’t see anything to worry about, apart from the fact the light was failing. I muttered a spell under my breath and generated a globe of light that lit up the entire room. A moment later, it started failing too. I reached out, opening my senses in the manner I’d been taught, and realised that the walls were literally sucking all of the magic out of the air. They might not be able to drain me, yet...I cast every spell I could think of, only to see them all fade away. Desperately, I looked down at the door. It had remained resolutely solid...

“Oh,” I said, in dawning realisation. The lock was exposed and I could pick it! I pulled a pen from my pocket and used it to twist the knob, finally opening the bolt and allowing me to leave the room. Laughing, I ran back up the stairs and into the dining room. “I made it!”

“The moral of that story,” Master Revels observed, “is that magic isn’t the answer to everything.”

He chuckled as he waved a hand and my plate filled up with bacon and eggs. “Eat up,” he urged. “I thought you would like to go on a trip this afternoon.”

Chapter Five

When I’d been a schoolgirl, I had practically haunted the West Port and the bookshops hidden away there. They brought back images of a bygone age, before the internet and massive chains of bookstores had taken their trade away. I loved them dearly, for they were cheap, comprehensive and their owners actually knew something about books. And now, not entirely to my surprise, they were glowing with magical light. I wanted to go look into them and see what new wonders had been revealed, but Master Revels was keen to walk onwards towards the Grassmarket. Reluctantly, I followed.